


I need a hero

by thisisamadhouse



Series: The Queen and her little Prince [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisamadhouse/pseuds/thisisamadhouse
Summary: Post season 4 finale, Henry breaks down after having seen his mother hurt and bleeding one too many times.





	I need a hero

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt from [ Lolymoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolymoon/pseuds/Lolymoon) : Things you said after it was over

You’re exhausted, at the end of your tether, but you can’t sleep, because though you’re worried that one of your Moms has been turned into the new Dark One, each time you close your eyes it’s your other mother’s blood you see.

Red, cooper smelling blood flowing out of her, after she had sacrificed herself for you. You’re starting to lose count of how many times you have almost lost her, whether it was through your own childish pettiness -when you thought that pushing away the woman who had raised you and loved you more than anything or anyone else, the only parent you had ever known, was a good idea-, or because some dumb rule of the universe had decided that your Mom couldn’t have a happy ending.

You almost hesitated before breaking the Author’s quill because of that. You finally had the power to write a better story for your mother, for your whole family, but then you remembered that too many people had already interfered in her life, lured her down a path she never should have taken. You feel that she deserves to have the chance to live her own life.

You heave a sigh, you know you won’t be able to sleep tonight. You turn on the light and open one of your comic books, hoping it will distract you. It isn’t long before your Mom knocks on your door and enters quietly.

“Under other circumstances, I would say that it’s high time you go to bed, but I think I will let it slide tonight,” she tells you, and her smile is unsure, she wants to be reassuring but she knows there isn’t much she can say. The time where she could kiss your wounds better is long gone.

She approaches your bed and sits by your side, you press yourself against her and she rests her cheek upon your head. It’s familiar, it’s easy to pretend that this is just like any other night where you would read your latest comics together, where she would let you stay up past bedtime because it was the weekend.

“I won’t ask if you’re alright,” but it’s not any other night, and she knows you better than you know yourself. “I know you’re worried about Emma,” she continues, and maybe she doesn’t know you that well after all.

“It’s not that,” you reply, raising your head to look at her and she raises her eyebrows in disbelief. “It’s not just that,” you amend, rolling your eyes. “I’m worried, yes, but I know we will get her back, I know we will solve this, cause that’s what we do,” you explain, and her smile is wider, you have all the hope she never let herself feel.

“Then what is it?” She asks and frowns when you bite your lip, stalling to answer.

“It’s you,” you blurt out and her face becomes blank, a hint of hurt few could see swirling in her dark eyes, and you curse yourself for being so careless. “I mean, I’m worried about you,” you elaborate and the frown is back.

“There is no need for that, honey, I’m not going anywhere,” she tells you, stroking your cheek, but you shake your head.

“You almost did though. I thought you did. You died for me, Mom. Even if it happened in some sort of crazy alternate universe, it felt very real when you were bleeding to death on the forest ground,” you argue and you sound harsh and insensitive but you can’t let her be so reckless about her own life.

She looks stricken, but the dam has burst now and you can’t stop. “Do you realise how many times we have said goodbye? How many times you left me behind and I didn’t even know if I would see you again?” You swallow the lump forming in your throat before continuing.

“Robin told me about the year in the Enchanted Forest, not everything, but enough,” you hold your hand up when you see she is about to interrupt. “Don’t be mad at him. I asked him because I knew that neither you or Grandma and Grandpa would tell me. You would have wanted to protect me, but I’m not a kid anymore, I can handle this and Robin gets that. He told me about some of the things you did to keep everyone safe, and all I could think about was that if something had happened to you, if you had been badly hurt, if you had died, I wouldn’t have known. I would have spent the rest of my life not knowing, or worse, we would have come back here and gotten our memories back but you wouldn’t have been there.”

You’re both crying now, silent tears running down your cheeks and you feel awful for causing them to fall but she needs to understand.

“What do you want me to say?” She questions after a moment.

“I just want you to stop putting your life on the line like that,” you answer. “I don’t want to lose you like I lost my dad.”

“Honey, I can’t promise you that,” she retorts, and you try to protest but she doesn’t let you. “I can’t because if you are in danger, if your life is threatened, I will never stop to think about a promise or about the consequences on myself. Your life is more precious to me than my own, Henry, and that will never change. If to save you, I need to sacrifice my life then I will, you need to understand that.”

You sob and it wrecks her heart, you can see it plain as day.

“Oh my little prince,” she breathes, pressing you against her. “I have no intention of leaving you any time soon.”

“You say that now, but who knows what it’s going to take to bring Emma back, even just to find her!”

“Let’s deal with one crisis at a time.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“I know,” she whispers.

You stay silent after that, both of you wrapped in each other’s arms and in your thoughts. Sometimes you wish things were easier, sometimes you wish that the curse had never broken because your Mom would be safer, but when you see how far she has come you can’t deny her everything she has gained. You just have to accept that this is her way of being a hero.


End file.
